REPORTS...IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: FORESTS AND ECOSYSTEMS

Reviews the movement of ecotones (transition zones between different kinds
of vegetation presumably sensitive to environmental change). Despite some
scientific attention to ecotones, little evidence exists in the literature for
widespread consistent shifts that would indicate recent global climate change.
Gradual transition zones have not received much attention because they are more
difficult to study. The methods developed may be viable for locating and
objectively characterizing gradual ecotones if aided by human interpretation in
the early stages.

Summarizes the major arguments and uncertainties associated with greenhouse
theory and current projections of forest responses to increases in CO2 and to
possible changes in climate. Forest responses are complex and difficult to
predict; consequences of projected climate change on forests remain speculative.
Potential effects should be considered in the context of expanding human
populations, developing technologies, and changes in resource management and
utilization, the impacts of which are substantial and more certain.

Direct Effects of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Plants and
Ecosystems. An Updated Bibliographic Data Base (ORNL/CDIAC-70), B.R. Strain,
J.D. Cure, Eds., 287 pp., June 1994. Available in print or in various
machine-readable forms from CDIAC or NTIS.

Updates a 1986 version. Provides complete bibliographic citations,
abstracts, keywords and common and scientific plant names for approximately 800
references published between 1980 and 1994. Half the citations were published in
or after 1990. A large proportion of recent research has focused at a level of
organization beyond the individual organism.

Prepared by the UK Review Group on the Impacts of Atmospheric Nitrogen
(INDITE). Consolidates evidence of the environmental effects of nitrogen
deposition; contains a section on critical loads. The application of the
critical loads approach requires links among problems of regional acidification,
eutrophication and global change to be quantified.